Editorial: NRA stance shows gun-debate urgency

Dec. 23, 2012

Nicole Hockley and Ian Hockley, with son Jake, at the end of a funeral service Friday for their son, 6-year-old Dylan, one of the 20 children killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. / AP PHOTO

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| A Journal News editorial

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre pauses at a news conference Friday in Washington, during which the NRA called for armed police officers to be posted in every American school in response to the Connecticut school shooting. / Evan Vucci/AP

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• Weigh in on the NRA’s news conference and read editorials, letters and commentary about what we should do after the Connecticut school shooting at http://lohud.com/opinion. • Read about social media’s role and what elected officials are doing to address gun violence on the Opinion Exchange blog at http://opinionexchange.lohudblogs.com/.• Tweet your ideas with the hashtag #AfterNewtown. • Watch a panel discussion on the next steps after Newtown at http://lohud.com/editorialspotlight, or listen to the podcast at http://lohud.us/V7Akj1.

Yamelyn Asencio, a student at Early College High School in Yonkers, and her classmates observe Friday's moment of silence for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. / Matthew Brown / The Journal News

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Mercifully, as it turns out, the leadership of the National Rifle Association took itself off the radar screen in the week after the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School. When Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre ended the silence Friday, he was unbowed, unapologetic, and, ultimately, unhelpful and irrelevant. He left an aching and anguished public, and all those looking for a meaningful and intelligent response to the bloodletting, with clear evidence the gun group will stand its ground, no matter how many wide-eyed first-graders and their teachers are vanquished.

If anything, the much-anticipated remarks from LaPierre — he offered a tone-deaf reiteration of NRA opposition to even the mildest new restrictions on the nation’s gun arsenal — amounted to little more than a rhetorical reload. His answer: further blame and ostracize people with mental illness — create a national database to track them; blame the news media and Hollywood; and put armed guards in every school. Most Americans — at long last — now seem to appreciate the obvious: that Sandy Hook was also about pervasive guns, both legal and otherwise (see today’s report on gun permits for more on that score). Moreover, this “tipping point” of public concern reaches beyond classrooms; it extends to the sundry other venues where gun violence leaves its mark — other public spaces, the streets and our homes.

Absent from LaPierre’s prescription was any discussion of banning the kinds of ammunition, or the capacity of ammunition clips, available to the public; any promotion of comprehensive background checks or improved permitting; any talk whatsoever of limiting the kind of firepower available to individuals — essentially where the national conversation “tipped” after children and educators died in the latest mass shooting. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s properly summed up the NRA leader’s response, calling it “a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country.” Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said afterward: “The NRA points the finger of blame everywhere and anywhere it can, but they cannot escape the devastating effects of their reckless comments and irresponsible lobbying tactics.”

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No waiting

Americans, we can be thankful, need not — and must not — wait for the NRA to properly join the discussion in order to fashion a meaningful public policy response. President Barack Obama appointed Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday to lead a national effort to “reduce the epidemic of gun violence that plagues this country every single day.” The White House has also signaled support for legislation that would renew a dormant federal assault weapons ban, end exemptions or loopholes to required criminal background checks, and set new limits on the size of ammunition clips.

Obama said Biden — the former Delaware senator authored the 1994 crime bill that included the now-lapsed ban on assault weapons — would consult with Cabinet members and outside groups before proposing “a set of concrete proposals no later than January, proposals that I then intend to push without delay.” No doubt, the Biden panel will also examine the relevant security issues in public places as well as the important questions about public and private supports for people with mental illness, especially those who pose a danger to themselves and others.

But the group should not shy away from the tough policy discussion — and remedies — pertaining to guns.

Local action

New York may not wait for Washington. Numerous news outlets reported at midweek that Gov. Andrew Cuomo was negotiating with legislative leaders to further tighten the state’s tough firearms restrictions. The Assembly, controlled by Democrats, has consistently passed ever-tighter restrictions on battlefield-style weapons, and gotten behind NRA-opposed legislation requiring the micro-stamping of identifying information on shell casings.

The foot-dragging Senate, now led by Republicans and five “Independent” Democrats, has previously blocked tougher firearms restrictions.

Scott Reif, spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos, R-Long Island, denied in a Times-Union report that his chamber had rejected Cuomo’s proposals; the governor had promised tougher gun laws even before the carnage in Newtown. But Reif’s remarks — like those from the NRA’s LaPierre — did not signal the Republicans were prepared to address guns head-on by further restricting the kind of firepower or ammunition clips available to the public.

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Reif said in a widely quoted statement: “Senate Republicans are supportive of sensible measures that will keep New Yorkers safe in their homes, in their neighborhoods and in their schools — including going after illegal guns, boosting mandatory minimum sentences, cracking down on criminals who use a gun in the commission of a crime, taking steps to enhance school safety, curbing gun-related gang violence and keeping guns away from individuals who pose a danger to themselves or others. If there is a law that could prevent the tragedy that took place in Newtown, Conn., from happening here, we have a responsibility to pursue it.”

Laws not enough

In any case, legislative responses — from Washington, Albany, even county governments — won’t be enough to stop the violence; everyone — including the president — seems to acknowledge that. Encouragingly, the White House allowed last week that its inquiry would also consider education and cultural issues. That ground must also get at the dimensions of why so many Americans, why so many of our neighbors, even in “safe” neighborhoods, are buying firearms — there are an estimated 270 million to 300 million firearms — and arming themselves to the teeth.

And there should be — for perhaps the first time — a frank and sustained public discussion of the societal and family cost of that firepower: on average about 12,000 homicides and 18,000 suicides each year. A number of analyses make plain that the more guns there are, the higher the incidence of homicide and completed suicides; the data are disproportionately grim for black males, and for women and children who live in homes where firearms are present; invariably the threat they face is from someone they know. Surely, in this expansive discussion about Sandy Hook, and steps we can take to prevent such wholesale slaughter, we can talk about these other deaths.

The heaping anguish they cause, diffused across the states, warrants our concerted response as well.